Mary Cravets

I get why you’re exhausted

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Screen Shot 2015-02-11 at 12.48.55 PMToday I was frozen. Panicky. I didn’t want to start anything or work on anything. I couldn’t focus and my creativity was at zero. I was in pure urgent mode, waiting for the next emergency.

On Saturday, my husband (who won’t even take an Advil for a headache) walked into my office and said, “I need you to take me to the hospital.” Within two minutes he was green, sweating and in the worst pain of his life. It came on out of nowhere, and we had to call an ambulance. It was terrifying.

Prompt medical attention determined that kidney stones were the culprit. Excruciatingly painful, but thankfully not life threatening. Further analysis revealed two stones – one he was experiencing pain from and another that would make its presence known sometime in the future. Back to today…

In the midst of my panic, flinching every time I heard my husband sigh, I worried that the sudden onset of mind-bending pain and a trip to the emergency room was imminent and I finally got it.

This is how many people live every day. This is what holds them back. I’m not referring to people in actual emergency situations or even just potentially urgent ones. This is about entrepreneurs, people like you and me.

We get frozen by this pressing feeling of the urgent and it’s completely false. I know this firsthand because what is truly important, what is truly urgent is very, very different from what we misinterpret as urgent every single day. But the results are the same. Paralysis, lack of creativity, wanting to shut down, avoid and distract. We get confused.

Here’s how to distinguish the difference between something that’s really urgent and something that just wants to distract us into believing it’s urgent.

Situation 1: Imagine you, your child, or your spouse just severely broke their leg. Sink into that feeling. This is truly urgent. Your day needs to be rescheduled. You email doesn’t matter. Your clients need to wait.

Situation 2: Think about your email inbox and the stress you experience over it. This is obviously not urgent, but does it feel different? It should. You really can handle this and your life doesn’t need to be rescheduled because of it.

We cannot treat daily priorities or simple distractions like they are urgent – at least not for long. We will burn out or give up, because it is just too damn hard to sustain.

Spaghetti and Waffles, Anyone?

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Recently I spoke for the Silicon Valley NAWBO chapter in Palo Alto. As I was teaching sanity strategies (a.k.a. time and priority management) to the group, the “waffles vs. spaghetti” discussion came up. It was eye-opening for the audience, so I thought you’d enjoy it too!
Bill and Pam Farrel coined the waffle and spaghetti concept, but the guy on the video I included uses the terms “boxes and wires” for his presentation. Take the time to watch it – it’s hilarious and educational all at once!

Let Go in Order to Grow – Delegate by Using the Power of a Virtual Assistant

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Contributed by Laura Schappert.

“If you really want to grow as an entrepreneur, you’ve got to learn to delegate.” Richard Branson.

When you’re good at what you do, people want much more from you. This can lead to a real sense of pressure and work overload because you can’t do everything that everyone wants quite possibly leaving you feeling stressed, unhappy and like you’re letting people down. No matter how hard or how long you work, there’s a limited amount you can accomplish. What’s worse, you may be totally stalling your success if you expect to do everything yourself.

There’s no shame in asking for help, especially when you’re overwhelmed and overworked and time seems to do a disappearing act before your very eyes. One definition of ‘delegate’ is to ‘entrust a task or responsibility to another person.’ A good assistant helps you organize your processes, completes your administrative tasks faster than you can, helps keep you accountable and on track thereby creating a flow which allows you to achieve more and increase your value.

Here are some signs you’re overdue for an assistant:

  • You feel like your efforts are getting you nowhere or are not creating income
  • You’re constantly worried that things are falling through the cracks
  • You don’t think anyone can help, and there’s no one who can do all the things you can do
  • You struggle to make time for the most profitable parts of your business and those that create the biggest opportunities (these are generally the things you love to do most!)
  • Your business isn’t growing, and hasn’t for six months or more

If you’re already relating to this and nodding yes, it might be time to get in touch with me for a complimentary conversation.

People don’t often consider delegation because they think they can’t afford a virtual assistant. This is backwards. Resources always follow vision and until you get clear on what you need, the resources don’t show up. By learning how to delegate work and by doing it well, you can quickly build a strong and successful support system. Part of the delegation process involves knowing what you want to accomplish and determining a deadline to get it done. Having the goal of delegation creates freedom to plan for the future, find new ways to develop your business and time to invest in higher impact projects to achieve success.

To determine when delegation is most appropriate, ask yourself some key questions:

  • Is this a task that’s taking me away from planning and strategizing my business?
  • Are there tasks that are draining me and keeping me from doing my best work?
  • Is this a task someone else can do, or is it critical that I do it myself?
  • Is this a task that will recur, in a similar form, in the future?
  • Can someone else do this task better or more efficiently?
  • Are there tasks I don’t enjoy or am not good at?
  • Is this a task that I should delegate?

If you can answer “yes” to at least some of these questions, then it is worth delegating.

By delegating work, especially recurring tasks, you’re making a positive choice by acknowledging your time is valuable and you’re worthy of having the freedom to focus on your specialty. Employ your virtual assistant as you would your business coach, hairstylist, barista, auto mechanic, massage therapist, anyone who specializes in providing a service you often use, appreciate and trust they know what they’re doing. Remember that old V8 commercial, “I could’ve had a V8!”? Well, you can have a VA!

One last tip: The time to hire an assistant is slightly sooner than you’re 100% ready and comfortable. By the time you’re totally ready – both mentally and financially – you’ll be too busy to properly delegate and train them, if necessary.

Laura Schapert, Sedona Virtual AssistantAre you feeling inspired? Are you already feeling some relief from overwhelm? Are you ready to let go? Are you nodding and relating to any of this? If so, the next step is to contact me for a complimentary consultation. In the meantime, if you’d like to know more, please visit my website. As a virtual assistant, I share my client’s visions, I believe in the services they provide and want every success for them, including time to thrive and enjoy life.

“Success means we go to sleep at night knowing that our talents and abilities were used in a way that served others.” Marianne Williamson

Consistency: The most misunderstood key to success

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Consistency is a key to success. Intellectually we know this, but putting it into practice seems to be a constant battle. And why is that?

Screen Shot 2015-01-12 at 12.46.10 PMBecause consistency has a plodding, dreadfully dull quality to it, doesn’t it? And we freedom-loving entrepreneurs tend resist anything that resembles the regular schedule of employment. But it doesn’t have to be that way!

Consistency – done right – frees up your time, energizes you, and gives you results. Here are three tips to give you a new perspective on consistency:

  1. Structure your consistency on a larger scale. Entrepreneurs start businesses for the freedom from a regular schedule – is it any surprise that you’re bored and resistant to a day-in, day-out rote version of consistency? Instead of having daily tasks, consider tackling them on a weekly or monthly basis. I consistently do the majority of my marketing each month in just one or two days – often in just a few hours on the last few days of the month. If I had to do my tasks a few at a time each day, I’d go crazy.
  1. Build variety into your consistency. Most entrepreneurs I know crave new experiences, so variety is a key value to honor in business. Some example of variety paired with consistency: be consistent about networking, with the variety of attending various events; be consistent about touching base with past customers, with the variety of how you contact them (email, mail, social media, phone); be consistent about email marketing, with the variety of sending out tips, videos and photos. Variety keeps you engaged, and helps you avoid falling victim to distraction.
  1. Evaluate your consistency… consistently. Even if you’ve scheduled your consistency to give you freedom and structured it to give you variety, if you aren’t seeing results, you’ll just be consistently busy with nothing to show for your efforts. To counteract this, simply track your actions and evaluate your results, then be quick to adjust them when needed.

Bonus tip: Get an outside perspective. Whether from a coach, mentor, or peer, do not struggle to figure this all out on your own! If you want to be consistent and get results faster, learn from others. It’s one of the top three mistakes freedom-seeking entrepreneurs make: avoiding asking for help.

Change your perspective on consistency, then implement your new perspective and instead of being bored, distracted, and unmotivated, you will be engaged, focused, energized – and seeing results!

Feeling stuck? Try this.

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Screen Shot 2014-12-01 at 12.54.53 PMFor decades, I wanted to send birthday and anniversary cards to my extended family. And every year, I didn’t do it. For some reason, I just couldn’t get my act together. I was stuck.

Until this year when I made a remarkable discovery that I would categorize under “Blinding Flash of the Obvious.”

Focusing on actually sending cards kept me stuck, because there was actually a critical step I needed to take BEFORE sending the cards. The step I was missing? Putting together a list of names, birthdays and addresses. (forehead smack!)

You see, I was stuck for decades because I didn’t realize my success hinged on a critical, simple missing step.

Can you relate? Here are some examples I see in business

You want: More clients
Missing step: Marketing Action Plan

You want: More income
Missing step: Making paid offers to prospects

You want: Prospects to remember you
Missing step: Follow up systems

If you’ve been stuck for a while, identify your missing step ASAP. And if you puzzle over it for a while without success, get in touch with your coach or accountability partner for that invaluable outside perspective.

Then share your missing step here!

Time management FAIL

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Last Monday, I had a short list of easily accomplishable tasks, and a small amount of time to do them. I was going through my list one item at a time, and then my first appointment of the day cancelled.

I thought – oh cool. I’ll get that calendar scheduling program set up, update all my social media profiles, and start organizing our move to San Luis Obispo.

WiresFAIL!

Why is it when time opens up, we have to cram it with twice as much stuff? Notice I didn’t even consider doing something relaxing like taking a walk or going to a yoga class!

Nope. Here’s what I did:

  1. I immediately stopped looking at my original list, which totally messed up my priorities.
  2. I took that unexpected space in my calendar and immediately tried stuffing it full of other items. This is an example of working in direct opposition to my VALUES (specifically FREEDOM).
  3. I filled the open space, choking out room for new things to come in. It’s basically like saying, “No thanks, universe, don’t give me anything else. My time is CHOCK full. And if it isn’t, I’ll just make myself busy. Don’t bother me with new clients or opportunities.”

When I became aware of what I was doing, I quickly outlined this article, then went back to my priorities.

The lessons here are twofold. First, when space opens up in your schedule, finish your original priorities, and then consider taking the rest of the day off. Enjoy some of the freedom that is supposed to be a part of the entrepreneurial experience.

And second, build some open space into your schedule. If you literally do not have a second to spare in your day, where is the room to grow?